


we make new stock from the salt

by Cerberusia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Derek Has Issues, M/M, Masturbation, Phone Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 11:40:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek turns twenty four in two months. He's only once set foot in a club and never wants to again - flashing lights and painfully loud music and <i>people</i> aren't his idea of a good time - doesn't drink because he can't get drunk and doesn't like the taste besides, and hasn't had sex in eight years and doesn't intend to start again now. He's only in this coffee shop because Isaac thinks he should try doing 'normal' things and try to reintegrate into society a little so when more bodies start inevitably turning up he's not the automatic suspect.</p><p>In two months, Stiles will turn seventeen, and it won't be any more legal than it is now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we make new stock from the salt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hagiologic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hagiologic/gifts).



> For hagiologic, who won me in the Sterek Campaign Auction, fic 2/3. We're getting there, we're getting there...Title from Plath's 'The Applicant'.

The college students at the next table are discussing how they're going to celebrate their twenty-firsts. The general consensus seems to be alcohol, sex and clubbing.

Derek turns twenty four in two months. He's only once set foot in a club and never wants to again - flashing lights and painfully loud music and _people_ aren't his idea of a good time - doesn't drink because he can't get drunk and doesn't like the taste besides, and hasn't had sex in eight years and doesn't intend to start again now. He's only in this coffee shop because Isaac thinks he should try doing 'normal' things and try to reintegrate into society a little so when more bodies start inevitably turning up he's not the automatic suspect.

(He also suspects that Isaac is just plain worried about his social development, which is touching but also hilarious and not a little sad when one considers that Isaac is basically the dictionary definition for 'maladaptive').

He wonders if he'll do anything: probably not, since he hasn't bothered celebrating the past few years and there's no-one who knows his birthday to force him into it. Besides, none of the things he wants are things you can really give as birthday presents.

(In two months, Stiles will turn seventeen, and it won't be any more legal than it is now).

~*~*~

Ten days later, when Isaac is putting in a token appearance at his foster home for the evening, he cracks and calls Stiles. Actually calls him, instead of just showing up in his room, because when he'd asked Isaac if that kind of thing was actually as creepy as Scott and Stiles made it out to be, Isaac had squinted at him in a sadly familiar way and said _yes, Derek, it's fucking creepy_ (Derek is very glad that he never bothered to even start to try policing Isaac's language - it's a losing battle if ever he saw one).

Stiles picks up on the second ring.

"Hey, Derek." His voice is very neutral. Not cold, exactly, but wary.

"Stiles," says Derek, then realises that he doesn't know what he called for. "How are...how are things?"

"You mean aside from the constant looming menace of an Alpha pack? Pretty boring, actually. That's not an invitation to make it more interesting, by the way." There's a rustling noise. "Now, what did you really call about?"

"Nothing. I just...wanted to see —" _what you were doing_ "— how things were going. As far as I know, the Alphas haven't made a move, but we need to be vigilant."

Stiles mutters something about _constant vigilance_ on the other end of the line which sparks a vague memory in his brain, but before he can ask Stiles starts talking again:

"Sure we do, but you don't call me about that. You want to talk business, you show up in my room unannounced in the dark and scare the shit out of me. Frankly, if I didn't know better, I'd say that this was a pleasure call." More rustling: Stiles turning over onto his stomach. "So, what's your pleasure?"

Derek blows out a breath through his nose.

"Stiles..."

"C'mon." He hears Stiles wriggling to get comfortable. He never can sit still. "What did you call me for? And if it's about Scott, you can ask Isaac, 'cause I'm not getting involved in your relationship counselling. Well," he amends, "any more involved than I already am."

 _Because I wanted to hear your voice,_ Derek can't say, because what the hell, they hardly even know each other, so he just swallows and says,

"Nothing important. Good night, Stiles."

"What? All that, and —" Derek ends the call.

~*~*~

A couple of days later, Stiles calls him. Derek has caller ID and could choose not to pick up, but he presses _Accept_ instead, aware of his pulse in his throat.

"Look, can't you just tell me what you were calling me about? I know we don't have the best history of telling each other important things, but since not telling each other important things usually leads to people getting stabbed at the very least, I think you should stop making that constipated face and tell me whatever might be about to come crashing down on our heads."

"I am not making — look, Stiles, it really was nothing." He tries not to sound too irritated.

"Derek Hale doesn't call over _nothing_. C'mon, it'll only come out later, probably at some really inconvenient time. Do I have to come over to whatever creepy abandoned building you've set up in this time and be annoying at you until you tell me?

"I have an apartment," says Derek.

"Does it have a roof?"

"And furniture. And a lease with my name on it."

"Woah, really? You're moving up in the world. And that was only half sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell."

"Literally moving up; it's a loft." Yes, that's good, keep talking about the loft and not about the other thing.

"Ooh, snazzy. Now let's get back to the point." _Shit._

"Look, Stiles, it wasn't - it wasn't about the Alpha pack, or anything like that. It wasn't even to do with werewolves. It was - " Derek hesitates momentarily, " _personal_."

"Personal?" Of course, Stiles still sounds curious.

"Personal. It wasn't important."

"Dude, it was important enough that you called me to ask about it." Derek sighs.

"It wasn't, in the end," he says, and hopes that Stiles will leave it at that.

And, miracle of miracles, he does.

"Okay, I guess. Have a nice evening hunting squirrels, or whatever." _Click_. Which leaves Derek to consider shifting and doing just that.

~*~*~

That would have been the end of it, but that within the same week, Derek bumps into Stiles in person, in the grocery store. For one agonising moment, he thinks he's going to be blanked - high school all over again - but then Stiles focusses on him and his eyebrows go up. He doesn't look hostile. He actually looks kind of...friendly. Derek is saved from making the decision as to whether to go up to him or not by Stiles coming up to _him_ and saying, quite casually,

"Hey, Derek."

"Hey," he says, a little awkwardly. Does Stiles want something in particular? Should Derek do something, say something? "I'm not here on...business, if that's what you think," he says hastily.

"Nah, I guessed not by the basket. Wow, that's a lot of hairgel. And ready meals. Uh, not that I can really talk - Dad doesn't have the time to cook and I tend to forget I've left stuff in the oven, so the microwave sees a lot of action."

"I do have time, I guess. I just never really learnt." Derek shrugs, still awkward. Why are they standing about in the grocery store chatting about cooking? Derek knows he's starved for attention, but what's Stiles' excuse?

"Isaac can cook," Stiles volunteers. "Well, only about three things, he claims, and one of them is pasta with sauce, but you gotta start somewhere so I guess you could ask him? Y'know, if you need to fill up your time."

"I - yeah, I'll. I'll do that." Stiles makes a motion as if about to clap his shoulder, then doesn't and just moves off with a brief nod of the head, leaving Derek still wrong-footed, yet strangely pleased in a way which has nothing to do with the newfound knowledge that he's living with a guy who can cook.

~*~*~

Once again, Derek rings Stiles without a plan. He has a vague idea that he might ask about Lydia, since out of the remaining group she's closest to Stiles, but he can admit to himself that she's not why he's calling. It's pathetic, but then so's the rest of his life.

This time, it takes Stiles several rings.

"Derek," he says. He sounds a little out of breath. "Sorry, I was, uh, busy."

"Busy with what?" Derek thinks he already knows

"Stuff. Things."

"One particular thing, I think," says Derek, then wishes he hadn't. He was no good at talking about this kind of thing when he was Stiles' age, never had friends his own age to talk about it with, and he's no better now that he's supposedly an adult.

"You can tell? _How_?" Stiles sounds more impressed than disgusted.

"I - uh, it's the, uh sounds?" He hates how unsure he sounds.

"Aw, this subject a little too delicate for you?" It's very light teasing, but it touches an exposed nerve (probably exposed by - but he doesn't think about that any more, except when he sees someone like her or hears someone like her or smells sex or thinks about sex and then she's all he can think about).

" _Yes_ ," Derek snarls.

"Woah, woah," now Stiles sounds alarmed, and Derek easily settles into the old pattern. "W-what were you calling about? Before we got side-tracked?"

"A friendly chat." It's even the truth, kind of: Derek had no illusions that it would go that well. "But since you're _busy_ , I think you should finish what you started."

"What? Derek, what—"

"You were masturbating. Jerking off. You should get back to that."

"Uh, sure, sure, I'll call you back—"

" _Don't_ end the call."

" _What?_ "

"You heard me." Derek holds his breath for several heartbeats, shame already creeping hot into the pit of his stomach, before Stiles at last sighs noisily and says,

"You are _weird_ , you know that?" Yeah, he didn't need Stiles to tell him _that_. But he hears rustling as Stiles pulls down his jeans, belt clanking but no _zzzzzt_ of a zipper, meaning the lazy shit hadn't even bothered to do them up. Teenagers. ( _Teenagers_. Stiles is _sixteen_ —)

The sounds Stiles makes are quiet, heavy breathing and _fapfapfap_ , but Derek's ears pick them up clearly.

"I hope you appreciate this," say Stiles, voice slightly shaky. "I don't jerk off over the phone for just anyone, you know." He's being flippant, but Derek savours the implications anyway.

"C'mon, at least tell me you're jerking off too," Stiles pleads, "it's too weird if you're just sitting there listening." That is, in fact, what Derek is doing, albeit with the heel of his hand pressed to his dick.

"If it makes you happy," he says gruffly. It's a lie, but Stiles doesn't have to know that. He's breathing heavily already: he won't know the difference. He listens, for a while, to the noises Stiles makes as he jerks off: the sighing, the rustling, the slap of skin-on-skin. The sound makes him unaccountably embarrassed, and he asks:

"How close were you before I interrupted?"

"Pretty close," Stiles admits, rustling as he moves again - Derek thinks he's now on his back. "Pretty close _now_ , actually." His voice is getting shakier, his breathing harsher and more shuddery. Derek drinks up every sound, squirming with the desire to start jerking off himself.

"Ah," says Stiles, suddenly, " _ah_ ," and Derek can imagine it clearly: his body curving in on itself, red cock twitching and blurting come over Stiles' long fingers.

After a long moment, Stiles exhales shakily.

"Derek?" he asks, voice thick and warm. "You still there?"

Derek ends the call. Then, just in case he's tempted, he turns his phone off. Then he undoes his pants at last, pulls out his cock and beats off hard and fast, just this side of hurting himself. He may as well.

No amount of self-flagellation will change the facts, though: he just listened to a sixteen year-old boy jerk off so he could listen; he just _made_ a sixteen year-old boy jerk off so he could listen; he's turned into _her_.

Bile rolls hot and sick in his gut. He barely notices his orgasm. The smell of semen assaults his nose - for months after the fire, he couldn't bring himself to jerk off, he'd just wake up in the morning after a wet dream and smell spunk and sweat, and think for one hazy moment he could smell her perfume mixed in.

He tucks himself back in, wipes off his hand, and goes for a run. He doesn't care that he's not wearing a shirt, doesn't care that it's dangerous to be out alone right now. He just can't be in the apartment any more, his room, his skin. He needs to run until he tastes blood instead of the illusive tang of Stiles' sweat.


End file.
